My Life and Such

So, yeah, what HAVE I been up to?  About 5'2" -- har, har.

But, in all seriousness, I've been away from the internets (mostly, but more on that in a second,) because I've been trying to get my brain wrapped around a proposal for a miliary SF novel.  I've got this awesome character, right? But, uh... no plot.  I've got and IDEA for events what should happen, but none of the "why the heck does this matter?" bits.  So, I've been banging my head against the keyboard A LOT this last week.

Of course, because I've been frustrated with the work I need to be doing, what's been pouring out of me like wine (or, perhaps "whine")?  Fanfic. 

This is part of why I said I think that fanfic can be addictive, in both the good and bad senses of that word.  The bad part is that "oh, holy crap, so much more FUN than thinking thinky plot thoughts!  OMG, look at me, I just spewed out 4,000 words in two hours!"  Followed closely by, "Wow, 80 people read it already!" 

So I've been trying the classic carrot/stick approach.  If I get some work done on the proposal, I'm allowed to go back to the fic.  But, I've been SO STUCK that it's been super-frustrating all around and has leaked out in fan art (see below.)  The only good news in all of this is that I have always had a profound sense of discpline.  If I want to continue to have the life of a writer that I've grown accustom to, I simply must "do my best!" (as the characters in my Manga are always saying) and get this thing out if it kills me.  I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow when I'm scheduled to hang out with my writer pals, so I can do some idea bouncing of their writerly brains. 

I kind of know my problem.  I need a good villian.  I laid awake a lot last night trying to figure out who that might be for this particular character.  I MIGHT have a bead on him now.  We'll have so see.  I'm off in a few minutes to learn how to walk a dog.  (I'm not kidding.  I'm learning the ropes of a dog walking job a friend needs help with during the High Holiday season.)  I'm hoping that letting stuff percolate without trying to force it out--which I'd been doing previously--might be the key.  I used to do a lot of my plot thinking on the treadmill, so the dog walkies might help me, actually.

Otherwise, Shawn had the day "off" yesterday.  In actuality, she had a fairly horrible test at the doctor's in the middle of the morning, and I not only drove her there, but offered to hold her hand afterwards.  It was actually pretty painful.  It involved electrodes and needles and... thankfully came out negative (the result that means normal.)  But, it also means Shawn still DOESN'T know what causes parts of her body to go numb randomly.  However, the doctor has pretty much ruled out anything that's super-life threatening at this point.  So it's a good news/bad news deal.

Mason is back to school.  We have some cute back to school pictures I should post finally.  Speaking of pictures, Shawn, the trouper, actually sent a gigantic order to Walgreens to finally print out the last two years of photos.  We spent nearly 70 bucks, but it should be nice to actually have hardcopies of some of these, and we can finally share some with Mason's school and our family.

Ah, so that's about all I know.  Hope you're all well.  I look forward to the flurry of spam this post is sure to elicit from the LJ spambots!